What makes community with over decades flooding history resilient? A lesson learned from flooded Bengawan Jero, Lamongan, Indonesia

Purpose Bengawan Jero Sub Catchment Area has been experiencing flooding for decades. Nevertheless, the communities in this area still survive, with increasing populations and wealth. Based on the assessment, 70% of resiliency variables are at reasonable levels, justifying the ability to survive disasters. Therefore, this paper aims to assess current community resiliency; map the performing and constraining variables toward resilience; and uncover the key actions and concerns of those key variables in daily practices. Design/methodology/approach This research is a resilience assessment concerning the adaptation and participation processes that occur from the perspective of the daily lives of disaster-affected communities. Data was collected using focus group discussions, in-depth interviews and participatory rural appraisal (PRA) methods and then analyzed by content analysis, clustered and mapped by K-means cluster and multidimensional scaling analysis for assessing and mapping the resilient performance. Findings The results indicate that some key actions in shaping community resilience to floods are financial support, business diversification and community actions. On the contrary, some key concerns that weaken the resilience level of communities are conflict of interest, lack of natural assets maintenance and topographic conditions. Research limitations/implications The sampling method used in this study focused primarily on certain stakeholders involved in river asset management and farming communities. Therefore, the limitation of this study is that the sample may not fully represent other communities and the broader public interest. Practical implications On the practical implications side, the findings of this study can provide guidance for regional governments in adopting key actions and key concerns into policies and regulations for managing the four flood-draining rivers in Bengawan Jero. Social implications The results of this research can serve as a reference for further studies on developing financial support systems tailored to the prolonged flood impacts on farmers. Effective financial support systems should accelerate the recovery of their productive assets after flooding. Additionally, further research is needed on farmer skill diversification, as well as the adaptation of agricultural infrastructure and its supporting systems into the aquaculture environment, particularly focusing on the efficiency of the transition system. Originality/value The use of key characteristics or properties of a resilient system has not been widely employed as parameters to assess and map the variables, in a flood-prone area. Furthermore, the uniqueness of the flooding that occurs in Bengawan Jero lies in its extreme duration, which forces the community to live in flood conditions for months. However, there has yet to be a study that explores how the community’s resilience process forms in response to this particular flood typology, what factors influence the dynamics of resilience within the community and what adaptation and mitigation patterns emerge in response to such flooding.